I'm home sick today -- two weekends of faire have taken their toll, leaving me limping, sore, and unable to bend without stabbing pain, so I'm spending the day resting. The cats woke me up early this morning by chasing and cornering a mouse in my bedroom, and, not realizing that I'd done something to my knee, I nearly fell down the stairs on my way to relocate the rodent outdoors.
The second weekend of faire was lovely, if exhausting. We had good gate numbers both days, and we'll probably end up donating around $30K to our charities this year. Our crazy, record-breaking numbers last year seem to have been a fluke, so while we won't be breaking any more records any time soon, we still did quite well.
It seems there has to be a little bit of drama for every day of faire. The first weekend it was the tree falling on the power line on Saturday and then the weather forcing us to close early on Sunday. This weekend it was a possibly-rabid raccoon being removed from the grounds by the game warden (and someone putting a stuffed raccoon in its place by Sunday morning, spreading the rumor that it had returned from wherever the warden released it), and then a pack of eight volunteers suddenly leaving on Sunday because one of them got a call about her child being ill or in trouble or something (all she said was, "it's my son, I gotta go," so I'm not really sure what happened).
We worked through all of these issues and made it a great faire for our patrons, just like we always do. We have some things to work on for next year, all with the goal of improving the faire experience and increasing the donations we're able to give our charities.
But first, we're all going to take some time to recover. Faire is fun, but we all come out of it a little scuffed.
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